This is a plan for carrying out a set of interrelated set of studies, six in number, all of them dealing with social and psychological adaptations of adults of various ages who reside in the metropolitan area of Chicago. The studies focus upon the ways in which persons of diverse characteristics change their life patterns as, on the one hand, they experience the normal transitions of adulthood (and as some face unexpected or disruptive life events), and on the other hand, as they experience changes in their "social surroundings"--their residential neighborhood, their work situations, their family situations. Thus all the studies deal with the interactions between the individual and his social environment, with personal and social changes that occur, with the stress and strain that arises, with the various ways individuals cope with these stresses, and how they arrive at successive new patterns of personal and social adaptation.